But when Seagreave pointed out to the sheriff that if no one remained in either his or Gallito’s cabin, it was extremely likely that both dwellings would be looted before nightfall, also that without the fires made and kept up the provisions would freeze and that with a guard over him, he would be as easy to lay hands on as if he were down at the hotel with the rest, the sheriff gravely considered the matter and was disposed to yield the point.  As Seagreave remarked, he certainly had not mastered the art of flying and he knew no other way by which he might escape.  “Poor Pedro!” he sighed.

“You bet it’s poor Pedro,” said the sheriff grimly.  “Why, you know as well as I do, Seagreave, that there ain’t no way on God’s green earth for that boy to make a getaway.  Of course, he’s given us a lot of bother, what with that damned snow falling again last night and covering up any tracks he might make, but we’re bound to get him.  Why, a little army, if it had enough ammunition, could hold Colina against the world.  When you got a camp that’s surrounded by canons about a thousand foot deep, how you going to get into it, if the folks inside don’t want you?  Now, take that, boy!  How’s he going to strike the main roads and the bridges in the dead of night, especially when the bridges is all so covered over with drifts that you can’t see ’em by day?  And, anyway, the crust of the snow won’t hold him in lots of places.  ’Course he may flounder ’round some, but there’s no possible chance for him, and I’m thinking that the coyotes’ll get him before we do.”

To this Seagreave agreed, and after the sheriff had further relieved his feelings by some vitriolic comments upon Hanson, he granted him permission to look after the two cabins, and indifferently ordered the deputy in charge to go down the hill and get his breakfast at the hotel, remarking with rough humor that he’d leave Seagreave the prisoner of the mountain peaks and he guessed they’d keep him safe all right.

So the two men, their appetites sharpened by a night spent in searching for the fugitive, took their way down toward the village, and it was not long thereafter that Pearl, having secured permission to go up to the cabin and make some changes in her clothing, wearily climbed the hill.  The lacks in her costume had been temporarily supplied by the inn-keeper’s wife, but these makeshifts irked her fastidious spirit.

She had suggested that Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas go with her, but they were too thoroughly enjoying the limelight in which they found themselves to consider trudging up to their isolated cabin.  Mrs. Thomas, in a pink glow of excitement, cooed and smiled and fluttered her lashes at half a dozen admirers, while Mrs. Nitschkan recounted to an interested group just where and how she had shot her bears.

“Say, have you took in the sheriff?” Mrs. Thomas found occasion to whisper to Mrs. Nitschkan.  “He’s an awful good looker, an’ I think he got around that hall so stylish last night.”